Monday, June 25, 2012

Amazing(ly Long) Infographic About the Scale of Our Solar System

It looks like there might be some actual U.S. news events to write about this week, which would be a bit of a change from the last month. I hope to get to some of those later in the week, but I was utterly fascinated by this infographic today, so I had to share it with you. It shows our entire solar system to scale (including a couple of dwarf planets only recently discovered that I didn't know about - have you heard of Haumea and Makemake?) - the distances involved in only our solar system are truly mind-boggling, and when you extrapolate out into the entire universe ... well, it's a reminder that, on a cosmic scale, nothing we do here matters in the least, so stop worrying about things. I do believe this is the longest infographic I've ever posted - I'm pretty sure it alone more than doubles the length of my home page. Voila:

About This Blog

I am one of the largely nameless, faceless bureaucrats who work tirelessly (and largely thanklessly) to help ensure that poor people don't go hungry - and a billion other tasks government bureaucrats do that no one notices until something stops working. Living and working in DC is making me angry - and I vent my anger as thoughtfully as I can. Well, OK, maybe I'm not terribly angry ... but I thought it was a good name for a blog. If you're also a bureaucrat, or angry, or thoughtful, I'm happy to entertain guest posts.